ST ANDREWS, SCOTLAND – In the grounds of St Andrews’ famous Fairmont hotel there are some acclaimed championship golf courses. I doubt very much that the G20 finance ministers and central bankers arriving here tonight will be teeing off.
Having “saved the world economy” in Act 1, Act 2 appears to be the no less thorny task of saving the world itself.
The Chancellor has forced climate finance to the top of the agenda at breakfast tomorrow. The UK/EU plan is for finance worth $100bn per year from 2020, half of which will be raised from the private sector through carbon market mechanisms.
The controversial bit is the other half. Which governments should pay for carbon abatement, mitigation, and percolation of green technologies to fast-growing economies so that they may prosper and grow using the least carbon possible?
The existing developed countries, AKA ‘the North’, AKA ‘the rich’, are responsible for 75 per cent of historic carbon emissions on this planet.
They are by far the cause of the current climate change challenge.
However, as the Chancellor will point out in a speech tonight, 90 per cent of future emissions will come from the emerging and developing countries, such as Brazil, Russia, India and China. The EU plan calls for some sharing of the burden of this 50 billion per year between historic and future polluters.
But here at St Andrews the Chinese in particular are saying No. There had been an attempt to do the heavy lifting work here in preparation for the Copenhagen summit.
The Danish prime minister will gatecrash this meeting alongside the British one. But tonight, all hope of a climate change finance deal here appears to be disappearing. We’ll know more after breakfast.
* The Chinese know all about breakfasts at these summits. When it was the G7 rich man’s club that ruled the roost, and many were complaining about China’s exchange rate policy, they did invite Chinese officials to attend as an observer.
But they were booted out after breakfast whilst the G7 crafted communique after communique that criticised the Renminbi policy. On climate change and elsewhere the BRIC countries are making their voice heard loud.
Brazil’s current policy of taxing capital flows would have been laughed out of a G7 meeting, but will politely accepted tomorrow.
The other major agenda item is building a sustainable world economic system.
Mervyn King has called the global imbalances, which I reported on from China using a dim sum table, the fuel behind the fire of the credit crunch.
The hope from G20 leaders is that the next leg of world growth will be sustainable and balanced, that North American won’t consume 30 per cent of the world’s output and will stop borrowing so much.
And that surplus countries like China will start spending more and stop accumulating three trillion dollar mountains of Forex reserves.
Very very interesting, but slightly academic.
A cynic might say that having “abolished boom and bust” in Britain, this is a rather lofty attempt to abolish boom and bust across the world. But it is heartening that one of the key geoeconomic lessons of this crisis is being learnt at the highest levels.
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It is to be hoped there will yet be something sensible (though that seems loftier yet to expect of the current crop of box tickers over anything sensible in terms of actual enviROI) achieved, especially as some who have poor control of their mouths seem to have set deadlines that… again… seem set more to embarrass and confuse than inspire and inform.
You know who you are.
Lets hope Faisal that they don’t concentrate on their own posturing power and discussing in detail what others have said rather than have done.
Looking forward to revaling ,( fingers crossed,) some effective managers who can single out problems, solve them and facilitate change.
Isn’t this what they get paid for? Whilst we are charging around looking for a few pounds an hour to pay bills , feeling jealous of those on state benefits, who come out more than us who have mortgages to pay, doesn’t it seem absurd that we are leaving the planet to these jackasses who take high salaries and progress at the speed of snails?
The fact is that the globe is not warming – it is cooling. Any reporting of the isue which doesn’t start by saying that “global warming” is a fraud having the effect of increasing government’s power to tax & control us is as biased as a report on Hitler would be if it didn’t mention WW2 or the Holocaust & merely debated his motorways.
Global warming is not a fraud, yes temperatures have dropped in the past few years, but a few years is a fraction of an eyeblink when talking about global temperature.
Measurements taken over a meaningful scale (one of more than a few years) show a definite rise in global temperature. And when plotted againt man made emmisions, the changes match almost perfectly.
Anyone who denies man made global warming should quit trying to justify themselves scientifically and just admit the truth, that they don’t care about the future at all.
The weight of the evidence is not on your side.
The rate which the core cools is not as great as the atmosphere’s /stratosphere warms.
All National Assemblies are unlikely to sign-up to stringent C02 emmisions Targets just yet. But that’s not a disaster. Nor is it the end of the matter. What matters is what WE all do. With oil futures priced at around $100 per barrel, everyone’ll soon be looking to cut as much waste as they can. China has a serious air polution problem that daily reminds its people and officials that action is needed – which they are taking. Slowly.
What we’ve got right now for Copenhagen is simply bargaining and bluffing between leaders who’re quitely taking action. And want someone else to pay
True enough, it’s not nearly enough action. But that’s because it’s very difficult to fast-track big changes in their people’s habits and assumptions. What we should all be doing is trying to persuade our neighbours that the presently intangible risks of a real catastrophe are very high, and that WE CAN avoid that. And then get on with doing so in everything we do. That will encourage followers, and give really strong support to national leaders to take further actions.
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